


The Moment Strikes Where It Strikes

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [283]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU Where Civil War Has a Happy Ending, Accidental Voyeurism, Amazing How Much Easier Love is When People Actually Talk To Each Other, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Bottom Steve Rogers, Brief mention of recreational drug use, Condoms, Consensual voyerism, Dirty Talking Bucky Barnes, Domestic, Exhibitionism, Have Faith Readers, M/M, Mild D/s, Misunderstandings, Multi, Pining, Roommates, Threesome - M/M/M, Top Bucky Barnes, Top Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-06-29 12:59:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19830736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: The strangest thing about living with an ex-sniper-cum-assassin with a giant metal arm is how the guy moves around like a wraith.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: Domestic and I scare people lots because I walk very softly and they don’t hear me enter rooms, so when they turn around I’m just kind of there and their fear fuels me. Prompts from this [generator](https://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).
> 
>  **And if you are new to the Mental Mimosa series, I strongly suggest you read an important note about how MM works[here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1012767)**.

The strangest thing about living with an ex-sniper-cum-assassin with a giant metal arm is how the guy moves around like a wraith. It’s not just that he’s quiet, slipping from room to room on size 10 cat feet, it’s that when he enters and slides up right behind you, he somehow doesn’t stir the air at all so when you turn around with your coffee or your wrench or the torch you just lit for purely scientific reasons, he’s right the fuck there, staring, silent and shirtless, his whole general person screaming at you to touch.

Which Tony doesn’t do, obviously, because he’s not an idiot. Everybody in the world knows that James Buchanan Barnes belongs to one (and only one) man.

Though if you put it to Steve, he’d argue the semantics. “Nobody belongs to anyone else,” he’d say earnestly. “Loving somebody doesn’t make you their property.”

No shit. But Tony has eyes. And ears. From afar, outside Steve and Bucky’s pas de deux, he can understand what Steve apparently can’t: when Steve’s around Bucky, he’s covetous, broad-shouldered, protective. Even when he doesn’t have his arms around the man (which rarely happens in public), the way he looks at his oldest and most fucking fragile friend is so full of feathers, of cotton candy and treacle mixed with sunlight, that it stings Tony a little, sometimes; god help him, he thinks at night when the penthouse is quiet, when even FRIDAY has drifted off to electronic dreams, what he wouldn’t give for someone to love him like that.

And inviting the Star Spangled Man he’s in love with and his unfrozen friend Rasputin to move in with him had seemed like such a goddamn stellar idea. No, it hadn’t. He’d known it would be a disaster from day one when he’d walked blindly into his own kitchen, thank you, at the wholly respectable hour of nine thirty at night and found the two of them kissing like they were starving, like they were both drowning in sand and the other was a cool, sweaty glass. Bucky had Steve pinned against the fridge--Steve, Steve “Living Breathing Fort Knox” Rogers--with both hands and his hips and his soft, silent mouth and Steve had been whimpering in a good way, very good, his face flushed and his body arching in Bucky’s grip like there was no way he’d ever get enough. It had done something bad to Tony, seeing that; it’d made his cock twitch and his heart rip and he’d lingered in the dark of the hallway for a long, breath-held moment, listening to the hungry slide of their mouths and boiling in envy cut through with lust and not saying anything, not drawing attention to himself. Just watching. Just wanting. Just feeling something inside him crack with every sound that Bucky teased out of Steve.

It was only when Bucky laughed that he’d turned away, when that dark head sank to nuzzle Steve’s throat and give up a warm hot chocolate chuckle that made Steve answer with a whisper and then a low, greedy moan. They’d looked so _happy_ together, that’s what had done it, happy and young and after all the ways that time had screwed them over, finally, finally free, that Tony had turned away, silent, and crept back down the long hall.

Let bygones be bygones and all hail amends, that was Tony’s motto these days. Besides, how could he begrudge them a damn second of happiness? He knew was he was getting into when he extended his invitation, right? Sure he had. He was the one who’d said _move on in, boys_. He was the one who’d been naive.

Because knowing the person you pined for was desperately in love with someone else was one thing. Living in the midst of that love was something else.

Oh, he’d never walked in on them getting handsy again, not after that first night. But the little everyday things are almost worse: the way Steve’s fingers skate over Bucky’s shoulder when he gets up from the table, the way Bucky hums when he does it, the way their eyes meet over nothing, the way they look at each other when the other’s back is turned and just very softly, very gently, gets smiles at the corners of their mouths.

And then suddenly there was the whole sneaking-up-on-Stark thing.

*****

Bucky has this bad habit of not wearing a shirt in the house; one of his post-Soviet pecadillos. According to Steve (because god forbid Bucky say), something about the stretch of even the softest organic fabric over the old forest of scars makes him feel claustrophobic, sometimes. Which, ok, fine. Tony can kind of get that. Spending 70 years being popped in and out of the freezer like the world’s deadliest Lean Cuisine had to mess with one’s head like that.

But there is also the uncomfortable problem of Bucky being, er, hot that makes no-top thing kinda weird. Especially when he’ll innocently turn around and Bucky is just _there_ , bare-chested and blue eyed and much, much too fucking close, so close that Tony can feel the heat of his skin and how that heat is different from that of that damned metal appendage, the one that emits, if Tony listens hard enough, a very particular purr.

“Jesus!” he’ll say at least once a day, because apparently forewarned isn’t forearmed. “Bucky, god. What the fuck?”

A shrug, a stretch of five fingers to pluck something off the counter, or the dining room table, or whatever the hell Tony’s standing in front of. “Been looking for this. And you’re in my way.”

And what’s funny/sad is how fast his body sorts through the being freaked out when this happens and starts shooting straight to turned on. Oh, sure, he still jumps straight up when he looks up from whatever he’d reading and Bucky is suddenly there, but there’s a thrill to it, too, a shiver of something that makes him feel like a teenager who’s just filched his dad’s _Playboy_. It makes him feel a little dirty, the way his body lights up when Bucky sneaks up on him, the images his overactive brain helpfully gives him of Bucky grabbing him and pushing him onto the ground. Or pushing him against the workbench, the nearest wall, pinning Tony like he had Steve, and ducking his face against Tony’s neck, chuckling, those powerful hands tight on Tony’s hips.

It’s confusing, is what it is, because he doesn’t stop loving Steve. Christ, how could he? The man’s put him through the ringer a dozen times and still, Tony feels hearts and rainbows as much when they argue as when they just sit down and talk. But Bucky belongs to Steve and Steve belongs to Bucky and no matter what his dick inconveniently feels when he looks up and boom, Bucky, it doesn’t make the essential fucking fact of Steve + Bucky any less true.

He almost calls Nat to bitch about it, to get fussed at, to ask semi-desperately for advice. But the one time he summons his courage, she’s in Bali with Barton on a mission that’s really an excuse for her to wear a bikini and for Barton to tug her out of it and honestly, his bullshit ain’t that important. They’ve earned some non-murder-y R&R, have those two.

So he sits in it and he stews in it and he jacks off at least once a day and it’s fine, really. It’s fucking fine, being roommates with Bucky and Steve.

Until one night, he’s padding up from the workshop, exhausted, the tips of his fingers scorched and his brain nicely goddamn tired as it turns over what didn’t work today, what he’s gonna make work tomorrow. He’s drawing a half dozen schematics in his head. He’s not, for the first time in a month, thinking about Bucky and/or Steve.

So when Bucky says “Hey” in the darkness, very softly, Tony nearly jumps out of his skin.

“What the fucking fuck!”

“It’s just me.” Bucky slips out of the shadows with his hands up. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“The hell you didn’t,” Tony says over the pound of his heart. “That’s exactly what you meant to do.”

“Mmm, maybe a little. But it’s for a good reason, I promise.”

“Which is?”

Bucky smiles. It’s a little uncertain. “I got a proposition for you.”

“It’s a little late for a pitch, Bucky. Call Pep and make an appointment for the morning.”

“It’s not that kind of proposition.”

He’s wearing sleep pants and a wifebeater, is Bucky. Bare feet and tousled hair. Lord. “Yeah?" Tony says. "Well, spit it out, _Pravada_. Some of us have shit to do.”

“I know you saw us, Stark.”

Well, shit. “Saw who?”

Bucky edges closer. “Me and Steve, the first night we were here. You stood in the hallway outside of the kitchen and watched us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” Another step. Tony wills himself not to budge. “You stood there and watched me touch him. Watched him suck on my tongue. Watched him shake for me and writhe.”

“No, I--”

“Shut up, Stark.”

Tony crosses his arms and glares and ignores the heat in his belly, the tell-tale twitch in his jeans. 

“You watched all of that shit,” Bucky says, close enough to touch, “and you didn’t say anything. You didn’t let us know you were there. You think that’s ok, Tony? To spy on other people like that?”

“You’re in my house. Nobody asked you to get handsy in it. That’s what your bedroom door is for, isn’t it?”

“The moment strikes where it strikes sometimes.”

“Sure, fine, but--”

Warm metal fingers on his face, cupping, tracing. It surprises him, how much gentleness there can be from something so blunt. “You should have said something, though. Let us know.”

“Why? You knew I was there, apparently. No verbal sigil needed.”

“Yeah, I knew you were there. And so did Steve.” A grin. “Why do you think he got so hot?”

Tony blinks. Blinks again. Remembers, reassuringly, to breathe. “What?”

Then there’s an arm around his waist that’s not demanding, that’s asking. “If you’re willing, Tony, if you want to, we want you to come watch again.”


	2. Chapter 2

Does the word _yes_ come out of Tony’s mouth? He’s not entirely sure. It’s hard to think when all the blood in his body just said _sayonara_ to his brain and is racing towards points south. Harder, too, because Bucky is holding him and his own arms aren’t exactly inactive and it’s kind of a lot to take in all at once, how it feels to let himself want.

Maybe he manages a nod, or maybe Bucky can read minds, or maybe the greedy little hitch of his hips is answer enough because Bucky grins, slow and easy, and says it for him: “Yes, you’d like that, huh?”

“Yes,” Tony manages then, at last, forever. “Oh my fucking god, yes.”

Thirty seconds and a open door later and Bucky’s nicely dragged him to their bed, le _sanctum sanctorum_ , where the light is low, just the right shine to fuck by, and here’s Steve, naked, a sheet pulled over his hips for no reason Tony can fathom because the man’s cock is so hard it’s practically cutting through it and that’s before their eyes meet and Steve makes a seriously hot sound and blushes from his hair to the white cliffs of said pointless sheet.

“Hey,” Bucky says. He’s still holding Tony firmly, a good two steps from the bed. “Look who I found for you, baby. Aren’t you gonna say hi?”

Steve’s back arches and seriously, he’s hotter than Tony’s ever let himself imagine. “Hi, Tony.”

“Hey,” Tony croaks. Feels like he’s going to, frankly. “Nice to see you.”

Bucky laughs and pulls him a little further away. “I’m glad we can agree on that, Stark.”

“Why’s that, again? Hmm?”

“Because,” Bucky says, “that’s exactly why you’re here: to see Steve. Not to touch him or kiss him or suck his big, beautiful dick, but to watch him. To watch me get him off.”

A breathless noise this time--from Tony, from Steve, Tony doesn’t fucking know, doesn’t care--and then hello, Bucky’s pushing him in a chair, a wooden fold-up job he doesn’t remember buying. They must have brought it with them--or bought it themselves just for this occasion. Or one just like. Jesus, have they done this before?

“Now, here are the ground rules.” Barnes again, the only one keeping his shit together, apparently; never a good sign with the quiet ones do all the talking. “You can watch from wherever you’d like, move this chair anywhere. But you have to stay it and you can’t get any closer to the bed than you are now, understand?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

Bucky tips his fingers under Tony’s chin and oh, that touch is enough to make Tony quiver. “You can’t touch him. You can’t touch me. But you sure as hell can touch yourself.” His thumb finds the line of Tony’s jaw. “I mean, Stevie’s dying to see it.”

A whine from the bed. “Buck--!”

“Me, though, I’ve gotta be honest.” That grin again. “I’m ok with you losing it in your shorts, Stark, so the only thing Steve gets to see is the big wet spot on the front of your jeans.”

Tony swallows, swells. “Shit.”

“Good boy. Sit there for us, huh, and be good.” 

Then Bucky’s hand is gone, his heat is, because he’s prowling back to the bed and yanking his wifebeater over his head and smirking at Steve, who’s squirming now, his dick giving some serious lift to the sheet. 

“Hey, babe.”

“Hey, Buck.”

Bucky tugs off his sleep pants. He’s big and fat in the light, a hint of wet at his slit, and ok, yes, Tony can understand why the hell Steve is squirming. Holy god.

“Did you do what I asked?” Bucky says. There’s a chide to his voice, a little rumble of pride. “Did you stretch yourself with your fingers?”

“Uh huh.”

“You know how I like you, Stevie.”

Steve’s head bobs, semi-desperate. “I know.”

Bucky fists his cock, casual, like he doesn’t have Captain Goddamn America going to pieces in front of him. “I like you nice and wet. I like to push right and feel you take this all in one go.”

“I _know_!”

“So did you do that for me, hmmm?”

Those hips come off the bed and screw it, Tony’s opening his belt. He has to, when Steve already sounds so fucking wrecked. “Yes, Bucky.”

“Show me.”

There’s a second before where Steve’s head turns, short and sharp, and his eyes land in Tony’s like anchors made of cotton candy, melting, so warm and hungry and sweet, and then he’s got a hold of the sheet and he’s peeling it back.

There’s a second after when Steve’s cock is free, bobbing long and thick over his stomach, and he’s still looking at Tony and Tony’s still looking at him and Tony can see as plain as fucking day how much Steve likes being watched.

Shit. There's a little, bitter kick in his stomach. They have done this before.

“Tsk tsk.” Bucky’s stroking himself a little harder, something dark and greedy in his face. “Babe, as pretty as your dick is, that’s not what I want to see.”

Steve’s eyes flutter and his head falls back and he spreads his legs, bends his knees. Shows Buck exactly what he wants.

Tony can’t see it, the soft wet of Steve’s ass, but he can grok Bucky’s expression: the red rush, the licked lips, the ripple of unabashed need, and it’s almost better that way, having to imagine, reading the beauty of Steve’s body through Buck.

“Oh, honey.” Buck’s voice is gravel now. “You did such a good job. Fuck, you’re dripping for me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” The voice from a daydream somewhere, a red rose of desire. “Buck, please, fuck me. I need you so much.”

Then Bucky’s snarling and kneeing up on the bed and Tony’s jeans are open--screw you, zipper--and his trembling cock at long goddamn last caught in the heat of his hand.

“That’s right,” Bucky says, petting the inside of Steve’s thighs, stroking, his eyes on Steve’s strawberry face. “Show Tony how badly you want it. How much you like getting fucked.”

Steve’s whole body ripples and for the first time, he touches himself, big hands spreading over the peaks of his nipples. “Oh. Oh, god. Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not teasing, I’m telling. You want him to watch, baby, you’d better put on a show.”

A blurt of wet from Tony’s slit, a sharp, perfect tug in his balls, and ok, he wasn’t planning on dying today, but if he’s gonna have a stroke from the smoke curl of Bucky Barnes’s mouth and the sight of Steve Rogers’s spread wide like a slut, then you know what, universe? Thank you. There’s a hell of lot worse ways to go. And the way Steve groans right then is actual heaven, way better than of that shit about everlasting life. Though if Tony could live forever right now, in this moment, beating off to the sight of Steve and Bucky, honestly, he’d be happy to pay off the whole damn Heavenly Host.

Steve’s fingers stumble his cock and fist it. Bucky growls at the first solid stroke. 

“Good boy. How’s that feel?”

“So good.” A whimper, a harder jerk, faster. “So, so good.”

That dark head turns away, towards Tony; the smirk’s still there, but barely, the sharp edge melted like ice cream scorched by the sun. “What do you think so far, Stark?”

“I think,” Tony says through the dry heat of his mouth, the urgent kick of his dick, “that you’d better fuck him already.”


	3. Chapter 3

Easy for Tony to say. Easy for Bucky to do. Easy, it seems, for Steve to take, because Bucky shoves into him in a single, beautiful slide and stops and stops it’s so clear now it’s practically transparent: how perfectly they fit together, these two men, how time’s at last again allowed them to be one.

_Now that’s love_ , Tony’s brain tells him, incongruous. _Point, click, and dig that_.

He’s stroking himself in earnest and there’s a blurt of wet at the tip and his heart hurts--oh, it does. But he grits his teeth and lets the lust win.

“That all you got, Barnes?” he hears himself say. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were letting your boy here off easy.”

Bucky’s hands are on Steve’s hips and he’s still, he’s so still; Tony can’t understand how he’s doing it, how he’s not giving into every instinct written in the lines of his body and giving it to Steve like he clearly wants to, like Tony would if they Freaky Friday’d it, if he was the one buried to the root and Bucky was stuck over here in this goddamn chair.

Bucky shakes his head, dark hair flying everywhere. “Mmmm, I’m not. He likes it this way, don’t you, baby? You love it when I make you wait.”

Steve’s whole body is shaking, a small San Andreas on the bed. His knees are drawn up, big and pretty. His cock’s a dire shade of red.

“I don’t,” he rasps. Long lashes sweep up to find Bucky’s face. “I don’t like it like this at all.”

“Yeah? Is that why you’re so tight? Because you don’t like it?”

“Yes.” A moan, not a word. “Bucky, come on.”

Bucky’s hips kick. “Come on what? You gotta tell me what you want, Stevie. I’m not here to read minds. Neither is Stark. You want something, you gotta tell us what.”

Tony doesn’t miss the switch, the one from _I_ to _us_. No sir, he does not, and he doesn’t miss either the way Bucky’s eyes unstick from the divine arch of Steve’s body and cut over to meet his and they darken, do they, when Tony bites his lip under that high beam of a gaze, when a hungry noise slips from his throat.

“Is that,” Steve hiccups, a big breathy flutter, “is that what you’d like me to do, Tony?”

“Yes,” Tony says immediately, his eyes still locked with Bucky’s because holy shit, _hello_ , is it true. “Talk to us. Tell us. We want to know what you want. How else can we make sure you’re happy?”

Four eyes on him now. Two tongues meeting wet lips. Oh hell. This is it. His cock is too old for this shit.

“C’mere,” Bucky says. “Scoot a little closer. Maybe that’ll motivate our boy to cough it up.”

_Our boy_. Tony’s whole body vibrates with that one. Ok. Sure. This is fine.

He scoots.

It’s only a matter of a foot, maybe; any closer, and his knees would hit the edge of the bed. But god, what a happy twelve inches it is. This close, Tony can see how Steve’s nipples are pebbled, can see the goosebumps on his chest, the high, tight flush that’s breaking out on his throat. He can see, too, how hard Bucky’s holding Steve’s hips, how hard his arms are trembling, the tiny, anxious twitch around his mouth, around those midnight-bue eyes.

“Bucky,” Steve pants.

“What, baby?”

“Fuck me. Fuck me, please.” There’s no shame, no hesitation, just a pure, perfect hum of desire. “Please, please. I need it, Bucky. Fuck me.”

“See?” Bucky’s crooning, his hands turning under Steve’s ass, lifting, driving. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Not as hard as you’ve got me right now.”

The front row seat is better; it’s a thousand times worse. Jesus, the sound of it: wet and dirty, groaning, the bed almost as loud as the two of them. Never mind how it looks, never mind how goddamn gorgeous they are intertwined, Steve shoving down and Bucky fucking up, hands grasping and heads thrown back, overwhelmed.

Watching one of them like this, it’d be bad enough, but taken together, the two of them having sex is a _crime_. The best and beautiful kind. Like some kind of boy band Bonnie and Clyde.

“And Tony.” Steve’s hand is moving again. Somehow, in the midst of this living porno, he’s giving Tony a shy smile as he jerks himself off, as Bucky pounds greedily into his ass. “Look, Buck. Tony’s hard, too.”

Bucky snorts and Tony does too, sort of, except it’s hard to even fake laugh when the love of your life is getting nailed right in front of you by the man he’s loved in what now, two or three different lives?

They’re squirrely about their story, these Otter Pops. Tony sort of gets why. The details are nobody’s business of their own; the outline alone’s enough to break hearts. How many fucking times did the universe split them apart, only to bring them together and then snap them in two again? It makes sense, then, why they’d cling to each other like this, why there’d be this constant need to be close, to be touching--just in case, Tony thinks. Just in case.

Which is how he feels right now, to be honest, like reaching out and holding on to this moment, these men, because who knows if this is a one-time deal, this invitation, or if they’ll ever let him come this way again.

Yes, he’s hard as fuck and yes, he’s going to take great delight in making a mess, but goddamn, is it really enough to be a bystander, your friendly neighborhood Greek chorus, when what matters is happening on the bed?

“You’re right,” Bucky says, and Tony blinks, realizes that dark head is closer. His body’s pitched down now, his hands clutching the pillow on either side of Steve’s head. “He is hard for you, isn't he?"

A whine, ten fingers clawing at the line of Bucky’s back. “Yeah.”

Bucky kisses him, drinks down that sound with a flash of tongue, with his teeth. “What do you think he should do about that?”

Steve’s head turns and oh, shit, Tony nearly loses it; only a quick fist and a squeeze keeps him from spilling because oh, god, the look on Steve’s face: it’s fragile and gorgeous, overheated and filthy, and lord help him, if he didn’t know better, he’d say that last shade was--

“Love,” Steve gets out, his eyes like azure fire, “love to have him fuck me.”

“Yeah?” Bucky drives in hard; Tony’s heart threatens to stop. “Then ask him for it, baby. Telling me don’t do any good.”

Steve’s arm tumble from Bucky’s back and Bucky groans, louder when Steve’s fingers stretch out to find Tony’s knee, scrape and scrabble to touch. 

“Please, Tony,” Steve says, voice a shimmer over the shouts of the bed, each word a soft nail in Tony’s throat. “I want you so much."


	4. Chapter 4

Only a Hulk squeeze at the base of Tony’s cock stops him from shooting then, Steve’s hand and Steve’s words and holy shit, _Steve_ , flaying the last vestiges of his sense from his nerves. And it’s a good thing he does grab, honestly, because three two one later and Barnes is giving it up, his gorgeous ass clenching and the gears of his metal arms grinding and his forehead pressed to Steve’s temple, moaning, as his body does its damnedest to shove his spunk all the way in.

The hand that isn’t holding off Tony’s personal Valhalla finds Steve’s, grasps it, and it’s perfect and awkward, holding Steve’s hand as Bucky empties himself out inside.

“Can I have him now?” Steve says when the maelstrom has ebbed, when Bucky’s groans have softened to whimpers.

“Mmmm,” Bucky manages. He shifts and finds Steve’s mouth. “May, you mean. May you have him.”

The crack slips out before Tony can stop it. “You never struck me as a pedant, Barnes.”

Bucky chuckles. “My mom always said it’s the little things that count. Why the hell do you think I found Steve? He was the fiercest little runt of the bunch.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve bitches, and it’s funny to Tony--kind of delightful, actually--to see that attitude turned on someone that isn’t him. 

“What?” Bucky nuzzles Steve’s neck and rocks his hips, hums when Steve shimmies and whines. “You were. I hate to break it to you, but it’s in the history books now, what a pissed-off shrimp you were. It’s a certified fact.”

“Hey,” Tony says, and oh fuck, his voice still works. Cool. “I think our boy wants it to be my turn. Now that you’ve, uh, cleared the way.”

“Fine,” Bucky says, his eyes dark and amused. “Condom’s in the drawer there. Put it on. And take the rest of that shit all off.”

“And as for you,” Tony hears Bucky say while he’s shucking his shirt and his sneaks and his jeans, “you be a good boy for us and don’t come, you understand me? You can’t come until Tony says it’s ok.”

Steve whimpers and Tony’s cock jerks and he’s naked at fucking last and fighting with foil. Of course he is. Now that Bucky’s pulled out and left Steve wet and open for him, his fingers are officially on fucking strike.

“Here,” Bucky says in his ear and hello, worst possible development for staving off orgasm: a naked and satisfied Winter Soldier tucked up tight at his back. “Lemme help.”

It takes two minutes and a lot of desperate, silent prayer for Tony to land on the shores of that bed, his knees in Steve and Bucky’s sheets, Bucky’s hot palms on his hips, and Steve a writhing, squirming ocean staring back. He’s sheathed thanks to Barnes and harder than a doornail thanks to them both and god help him if he’s never seen anything more beautiful than his own hands tracing the soft inside of Steve’s thighs. It’s soft, that skin, and also wet, marked by Bucky’s come, and if he thinks about it too hard that’ll be all she wrote. 

Doesn’t help that Steve’s fists are curled in the sheets, that his dick is dripping, that he’s staring at Tony like he’s ready to be eaten alive.

“Go on, then.” Bucky pushes a little, leans the weight of his chest against Tony’s back. “He’d ready for you. And look at him, huh? Look how hard he’s fighting not to fucking come. We gotta reward him for that.”

“Tony.” A word so soft, he thinks he’s dreaming. So pretty, he can’t believe that he isn’t. “Tony, yes. Yes yes yes. _Please_.”

Then his nails are skating and his body is moving and he doesn’t take it slowly, there’s no way that he can; once touch of Steve’s wet clench and god help him, he needs it all right then and there.

“Oh, fuck,” Bucky says in his ear, his hands curling around to stroke at Tony’s stomach. “Look at you, baby. He was made for you, wasn’t he? Like a key in a lock.”

Thank god he’s wearing a condom. Thank god. Thank fucking god. Because if he wasn’t--a groan leaks out of his throat and his hips hitch--if he was feeling Steve bare, all of Bucky’s come, he would gone off like a shot a la the kid he was certainly not.

“That’s it,” Bucky murmurs. His mouth’s hot against the curve of Tony’s neck. “Go on, let him have it. You have no idea how much he wants it. He’s waited so long.”

In front of him, around him, Steve is on fire, all that warm, perfect skin Pollack-ed with red. His back is arched and he’s actually fucking clawing at the bed and the noise he’s making is high and loud and tight and it feels like a dream, the scene does, the dirtiest, most beautiful dream. 

Bucky nuzzles his throat. “Hold his thighs open. No, push them apart hard, mmmm, there you go. That’s right.”

“He’s trembling,” Tony whispers, watching that beautiful body yield for him and then fight not to let him pull back. “Bucky, he’s shaking so hard.”

A chuckle, one that runs like caramel down his back. “So are you, sweetheart. Hmm? Aren’t you?” Strong arms curl around him, squeeze him, and now holy god, he’s done for. This is it. There’s no coming back. “Don’t hold back on him, Tony. Don’t hold back on yourself. He doesn’t want you to, do you, baby?”

Steve’s head tosses on the pillow and there’s a groan and suddenly--shit shit shit--his hips are pushing down, his body straining to meet every thrust as his hand slithers up to his big pretty dick and now everybody’s groaning, it’s one long line of sound, the noise molded together as tightly as their bodies.

“Next time,” Bucky growls, “next time you fuck him like this, I gotta be inside you. God, I knew it’d be hot watching him take your cock, but Christ--!”

His head is on Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky’s cock is hard against his ass and Bucky is everywhere and where Bucky isn’t there’s Steve, Steve goddamn Rogers, the unrequited love of his life who’s squeezing him so fucking tight and whose head is tipped down at last, whose eyes are wide and wet and fixed on Tony’s as he grins, that beautiful bastard, as he stutters in his own fist and _grins_.

“Tony,” he gets out, a petal hurled from a storm, “oh, god, Tony, fuck. Make me come.”

And then he’s clutching at Steve’s thighs and he feels like he’s dying and he’s roaring, pounding mindless, driving, and there’s no more sense to be found in the sweet hollow of Steve’s body because there’s white everywhere, the smell of Steve’s spunk, shot after shot of it, and the heat of Bucky’s mouth on his and when he comes, there’s no sound and no breath--it’s like leaping from a plane with no chute. He’s falling and falling and the sky is singing around him, stars plastered to the backs of his eyes, and just when he feels the ground approaching, Bucky’s fingers slip down and tease his balls and up he goes again, sailing, another sharp hitch of his hips.

“Next time,” Bucky whispers against his chin, “next time I want you inside of him bare.”

****

When he settles to the ground at last, it’s Bucky who pulls him out, who rolls off the rubber, who pushes him jellified into Steve’s arms. It’s Steve who tugs him close and kisses him, tender, his mouth soft and impossibly sweet. It’s Steve who pets his poor, exhausted cock and sighs when Tony’s fingers sweep the through the mess of Steve’s come. Their legs tangle and their tongues do, too; kissing Steve is taking a slow stroll on the beach. Long and lazy, the man’s kisses are, his big, solid hands, his contented little hums. He’s the ocean, Steve Rogers, vast and warm and forgiving, pleased as fucking punch, apparently, to have Tony close, to hold.

It’s Bucky who crawls under the sheets still hard enough to cut glass, Bucky who props his head up on one hand and takes his cock in the other and strokes himself while they kiss. And if that gets Tony’s one remaining brain cell lit up, having Bucky Barnes jerk off beside him, if he tugs at the arms of America’s golden boy until said boy gets the message and rolls on top of him so he can be smothered by all that gorgeous hot skin while they kiss, well, so be it.

“Oh, shit,” Bucky spits when Tony finally gets his hands on that perfect peach of an ass. “Oh _shit_.”

When Bucky comes, Tony’s hands are in the wreck of Steve’s hair and Steve is rutting gently against him, purring, his fingers stroking down Tony’s ribs and then Bucky’s groaning, shooting, humming, the heat of his spunk just catching their skin and god, the way Steve smiles then, in that small, perfect moment, makes a light in Tony’s battered soul shine.

He hangs on to that light when the bed grows quiet, when they do, when they curl close to him and fall asleep with their hands on his skin.

 _Next time_ , Bucky had said, again and again. _Next time_. Would there be one?

He wondered if audience participation had always been on the menu, if it was _de rigueur_ was when they invited a spectator in. Because they’d done it before, hadn’t they? When Bucky had pointed him to the chair and said in no uncertain terms _stay there_ , he’d been so sure. They’d seemed to know exactly what they wanted from him.

But then Steve had reached for him, and then Bucky had, and once the condom went on, it had been easy to believe that it was Tony they wanted, him, not just anybody. Not just any random dude with a dick.

 _He was made for you, wasn’t he?_ Bucky had said as he pushed in. _Like a key in a lock._

“Hey.” A feather kiss against his shoulder. “You ok?”

“”M fine.”

“Yeah?” Steve’s hand strokes his chest. “You havin’ trouble sleeping? If Buck’s snoring in your ear, just punch him.”

“No, ‘s ok.” 

It makes sense to turn his head and find Steve’s mouth waiting for him, to close his eyes in the darkness and sink his tongue inside. It makes sense to sink into the feel of Steve’s fingers, into the soft, sleep sounds he makes as they kissed. And it makes sense to let go and and give into every feeling he’s been fighting all night long and think and know and know _Steve Rogers, I love you_.

And now there’s Bucky, too, dreaming against his back, his breath in Tony’s hair, and what the hell does that mean, exactly? Wanting the guy was one thing, but it felt like more than that now.

...it did, didn’t it? Shit.

“Hey.” Steve’s cupping his face now, their lips still pressed together. “Tony, what is it?”

There’s a flutter in his head now, a beating wing of panic. His body feels so good but his mind doesn’t. Too much in there, too much feeling; he’s trying to process too much at once.

“I think…” The words come out like a croak. “I think I, uh--I need to sleep in my own bed.”

Steve’s thumb slides down his face. “Ok. I understand.”

 _Do you_? Tony thinks. His heart’s officially Road Runner-ing. It’s getting harder to breathe. _Because I don’t_.

“Tony?”

“Hmmm?” 

A smile, one he can feel as much as taste. “Thank you.”

Then Steve’s kissing him again, fervent and eager and sweet, and god help him, Tony wants to throw his arms around the man’s neck and hang on for dear fucking life. 

But what he does instead is press his palms to Steve’s chest and push just a little, just enough.

“You’re welcome, believe me, I, ah--I just--”

And then he’s free and he’s sliding down the bed, off it.

“Ok,” he hears Steve says again, a little bruise of a word. “Yeah, Tony. Ok.”

Outside, the light in the hallway’s too bright and it hurts him to open his eyes. It’s easier to keep them closed as he stumbles away from one of the best nights of his life and into his own bedroom, cold and alone, and more than anything, afraid.

 _What if they don’t want me?_ he thinks as he shivers, the shake in his skin so different from what had been with Bucky and Steve around him. _What if it isn’t me that they want_?

 _What if_ , he wonders. 

_Next time_ , Bucky whispers.

_What if_

_Next time_

_What if_  
  
And then, just before exhaustion grabs him, he imagines Steve’s voice in his ear, soft and certain: _Next time_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more installment here, I think...


	5. Chapter 5

He makes a point of staying away for the next few days, for two reasons: it's easier and he’s chicken. 

Truth be told, though, running for the hills doesn’t do a hell of a lot of good when what you’re trying to avoid most is what’s running around in your head. Still, if flight, freeze, or fight are his options, there’s only one that’s actually viable--although there is part of him that campaigns hard for a couple of days in bed with the covers pulled over his head, but that part loses in favor of New York in Springtime and lots and lots of champagne. 

It’s springtime and there are flowers everywhere, blooms, and every sidewalk cafe he steps into and completely disrupts during the dinner rush has at least one sparkling darling on the cocktail menu. He drinks French 75s and mimosas and exotic pink thingys with bubbly floating on top and he plays Tony Stark for awhile, man about town, breezy with the public, approached respectfully by adoring fans. It’s a hell of a lot easier to sign autographs and crack jokes and set up stupidly elaborate selfies than to think about Steve and Bucky’s bed and all that may or may have happened there.

No, that’s not it. A lot happened. He just isn’t 100 about what it meant.

So he drinks and he laughs and he gets very annoyed phone calls from Pepper and listens to British New Wave as he walks through the city, pounds down sidewalks he’s known all his life, the ones he’s spent the past five years sailing over while wearing a tricked-out tin can.

He does all this in order not to commune with his feelings, and when that doesn’t work, when the night comes and technically he has every reason to be home, he sneaks in through the coded-only-to-admit-him entrance and smokes weed in his workshop until 2 AM and then creeps up the stairs to, you know, actually sleep.

It works well, this plan, really damn good, and it isn’t until the fourth or fifth day that he starts to think the Wonder Twins might be avoiding him, too. He’s barely heard a peep out of them; there’s been nary a stray coffee mug in the sink. Huh. Once it occurs to him, it’s hard not to think.

Maybe it’s better for everyone, he muses one afternoon, dodging raindrops with the tourists on the edge of Central Park, if they just walk away from what happened between them. Find a way to wipe clean the slate.

It was a thing. It was great. It was confusing as hell.

Yeah, he figures, turning on his heel on a whim and rounding the bases for home, that’s the best play for everybody: dust the night off, repress like hell, and go on their merry way.

Good plan. Seriously solid one, at least. Or it is until he walks into the kitchen shaking off the damp and finds both of them cross-armed and waiting.

“Tony,” Barnes says. “You got a minute?”

Barnes is grim-faced, Steve deceptively stoic. Oh hell. Tony’s stomach flips over. This isn’t good.

“Only just,” he lies. “Got something to check on in the lab.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “We, uh--we don’t want to keep you. Maybe we can talk later.”

“Yeah, no.” Bucky’s frown digs deeper. “We need to settle this now.”

“Settle this? Why I do I feel like I should be wearing spurs and a ten-gallon, huh?”

Now they’re both frowning at him. Awesome.

Steve says: “This isn’t a joke, Tony.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that. Your Death Eater expressions aren’t exactly screaming hilarity.”

Bucky’s nose wrinkles. “Our what?” 

“It’s a wizard thing,” Steve says. “A book. There’s a movie.”

“Look,” Tony says semi-hysterically, resisting the urge to fucking flee, “can you just tell me what the fuck is going on already? Huh? Please?”

There’s a beat of silence. Steve gives up a nervous little huff. “We owe you an apology.”

“Yeah?” His arms are crossed now. Cool. He’s part of the club. “For, ah. For what?”

Steve turns crimson. “The other night, when we--when the three of us ended up in bed together, that wasn’t--things happened kinda fast.”

“What Stevie means is that we invited you in for one thing and what you go was...something else. And the way you left, after, it made us realize how unfair that was to you.” Bucky tries to smile, but it’s hella strained. “It ended up being a bit of a bait and switch, and that--”

“That was cruel. We didn’t mean it to be, god, Tony! Believe me, it was just--”

“We got caught up in how good it felt having you there with us.” Four blue eyes on him, bright pilot lights. “What it boils down to, Stark, is that we didn’t think enough about you.”

There’s a chair next to Tony. That’s a good thing. He needs it, falls into it bodily.

“If we’d asked you what you wanted instead of assuming,” Steve says miserably, “then maybe it wouldn’t have been like it was for you at the end, you know? Maybe you wouldn’t have run.”

“I didn’t bolt because you hurt me,” Tony says, because he’s an idiot and it’s all suddenly right there, everything he’s spent days trying to outrun, “I was fucking overwhelmed, fellas, like I got thrown into the deep end of the ocean. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get wet or anything, ok, jesus, it was just--” He spears his fingers through his wet hair and his hands are shaking, shaking. “It was just so, so damn much all at once and it wasn’t _bad_ , but I didn’t know what to believe.”

“About what?” Bucky’s a step closer now, his arms unwound, his scruffy face surprisingly soft. 

“About any of it!" He flails. He is flailing. "I wasn't sure if you actually, you know, wanted _me_."

Bucky frowns. "As opposed to...who, exactly?"

"Whoever else you invited in, to, you know, have dinner and a show!"

"You--" Steve looks fucking green. "You think we've asked other people, to, er--?"

"Well, yeah." Tony blinks. "I mean, I guess I assumed."

"Tony," Bucky says like Tony's just admitted eating crayons, "the only person we've ever wanted to watch us is you."

"What? Come on. No! Really?"

Steve bites his lip, a gesture that shouldn't be so pretty. "Really."

Tony needs to sit down. He is sitting. He's tempted to stand up and sit down again. "Oh god," he says. "Oh, god, I can't believe I--I mean, goddamn Steve, I’ve”--is he gonna say it? He can’t stop himself--“I’ve been in love with you for an embarrassingly long length of time, ask my diary, and you, Barnes, I...you are sin on a stick, man, what can I say?”

“You love me.” Steve says it with wonder, like each word’s new on his tongue. “You love me?”

Bucky grins, a shaft of sunlight in a dark fucking room. “I told you so!” He smirks at Tony. “He thought you just wanted to screw him.”

“Well, that too! Who said those were wholly separate things?”

“Nobody,” Bucky says. “He’s just an idiot when it comes to shit like this. Ask him how long it took him to kiss me when we were kids. Practically had to throw myself at him.”

“You did throw yourself at me.” Steve’s smiling now, all white teeth and heat. “Many, many times, several involving ridiculous amounts of nudity.”

“And you still didn’t get that I was serious, did you?”

“No,” Steve says. They smile at each other, beautiful and ancient. “As I recall, you had to be the one to kiss me.”

“Wait,” Tony says. “Steve. Did you send Barnes to do your dirty work? Did you deploy his pretty ass to seduce me?”

“N-no,” Steve stammers. Bucky just laughs.

“Baby, if I lived my life waiting for his orders, neither of us would have nearly as much fun.”

Which is how Tony ends up on his feet, not running, but leaping; those two steps from standing to Steve Rogers’s side feel like the goddamn Grand Canyon. Then his hands on Steve’s face and Steve’s arms around him--oh, they’re just as wide.

“I love you,” Tony says again, breathless by how much easier it to say than to hear echo inside his mind. “I love you, Steven G-for-Grant Rogers. If I kiss you right here, right now, will you finally fucking get that?”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Steve says, beaming like a little shit. “Try me and I guess we'll see.”

Kissing Steve while they’re both stripped down and desperate is one thing; kissing him like this, _feeling_ , accepting, needing--oh, christ, it’s even better than that. Better still when Bucky slide up behind him and winds those clever mitts over his hips and lowers that hot, ardent mouth to his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky murmurs, his long hair falling over Tony’s face. “We should have talked like this before we invited you in. We fucked up.”

“Hey, I coulda called time out, you know. Thrown up a red card or something. It wasn’t all on you.”

Steve hums against his cheek. “Kind of unfair to ask you to be the only responsible adult, huh? Especially in the heat of the moment.”

“And it was hot,” Bucky says. His hips kick against Tony’s ass. “God, was it. Watching you two fuck like that. You wanted each other so bad.”

There’s a whine--is it him or Steve? Maybe both--and then they’re kissing again, greedy. And who can blame them? Tony figures. It’s been almost a whole goddamn week.

How had he gone his whole life, though, without this? Without Steve purring in his arms and Bucky clawing gently at his stomach, his hands sliding up and under Tony’s shirt?

“Do we have to talk more right now?” he gasps when Steve lets him have air again. “Or could we just skip ahead to the part where you drag me back to your bed?”

Bucky growls and Steve whimpers, a combination that goes straight to his cock.

“We can’t not talk about this,” Steve says. “We have to.”

“Oh, I know, I know,” Tony says, “I’m merely suggesting that the extended version of this conversation can be tabled until after you’ve come on my dick.”

“Jesus, Tony!”

“Mmm, alternative idea here, Stark.”

“What’s that?”

He feels Bucky’s teeth graze his ear, feels them arch into a grin. “We could always fuck him right here.”

And so _what if_ collides with _next time_ in the place it all began: in the shadows of Tony’s kitchen, the rain pounding the windows, Steve’s body a wet, hungry vise. Then Bucky hauls them both down the hall and throws them boneless into bed and Tony ends up between them, Bucky buried inside him and Steve sucking his cock and when he comes again, they kiss him, trade the taste of his spunk on their tongues, tongues that whisper things like _I love you_ and _That’s it, sweetheart_ , words that each carry a weight of their own.

Next time, this time, he drift off in their arms, easy, the sheets a wreck and their bodies sticky and his heart--oh, his foolish, hopeful heart--fuller than it’s been in years.

“Tony?” Bucky says softly, after, when Steve is snoring gently in his ear.

“Hmm?”

A kiss on his temple. “I’m really glad that you’re here.”

He grins into the darkness, threads his fingers through theirs: Steve’s sweet on his chest and Bucky’s low on his stomach, possessive. “Me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is the actual ending! _Fin_. The end.
> 
> Thanks for reading and for sharing your takes on the tale with me as the fellas and I merrily rolled along.


End file.
